Dr. Sinead McDermott
Responsibilities
- Lecturer in Women's Studies
- Undergraduate Co-ordinator, Women’s Studies (For information on Women’s Studies programmes and events please see www.ul.ie/womensstudies)
Academic Background
BA in English, Queen’s University Belfast (1992)
MA in Contemporary Literary Studies, Lancaster University (1993)
PhD in English, Strathclyde University (1998)
Lecturer in English, University College Scarborough (1998-99)
Lecturer in English, Free University of Amsterdam (1999-2001)
I have been lecturing in UL from 2002 to the present
Research interests
- Contemporary British and American women’s fiction
- Feminist literary and cultural theory
- Cultural memory
- Gender, representation and the politics of the body
Research supervision
I am currently supervising PhDs on the following topics: Representations of motherhood in contemporary Irish fiction; Gendered spaces in contemporary women’s fiction; a Kristevan analysis of Medbh McGuckian’s poetry; Gender and hysteria in American women’s fiction. I have also supervised MA theses on topics including gender and popular culture; feminist art practice; and representations of the female body in Irish women’s magazines.
Selected Publications
“The Ethics of Postmemory in Bobbie Ann Mason’s In Country.” History, Memory, Exile. a special issue of the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 39:2 (Fall 2006): 5-21
“Notes on the Afterlife of Feminist Criticism.” ‘Theories and Methodologies’ roundtable, PMLA 121:5 (October 2006): 1729-1734
“Kate Atkinson’s Family Romance: Missing Mothers and Hidden Histories in Behind the Scenes at the Museum.” Critical Survey 18.2 (2006): 67-78
“Mary Morrissy’s Maternal Subjects.” Single Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Cultural, Historical and Social Essays, ed. Maria Cinta Ramblado-Minero and Auxiliadora Perez-Vides (Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006): 195-212
“Future-Perfect: Gender, Nostalgia, and the Not Yet Presented in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping.” Journal of Gender Studies 13.3 (2004): 259-270
“Maternal Belongings and the Question of ‘Home’ in Mary Morrissy’s Mother of Pearl.” Feminist Theory 4.3 (2003): 263-282
“Memory, Nostalgia, and Gender in A Thousand Acres.” Gender and Cultural Memory. a special issue of Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.1 (2002): 389-408
“Putting Myself in Her Place: Identity, Identification, and Irishness in Are You Somebody? and Alias Grace.” Devolving Identities: Feminist Readings in Home and Belonging. Ed. Lynne Pearce (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2000)